Artificial Sweetener Side Effects

Are Artificial Sweetener Side Effects Ruining Your Fat Loss Efforts?

In this blog post I want to talk about artificial sweetener side effects and how it can affect your fat loss efforts. A client of mine named “Claire” came into the studio the other day drinking a diet soda. Typically clients would try to hide the fact that they’re drinking poison but not Claire. Claire was actually showing it off and proud of the fact that she made the “healthy” switch from drinking regular soda to diet soda.

Claire, Claire, Claire…One of The Many People Suffering From The “0 Calorie Confusion”

I quickly sat Claire down, put my hand on her shoulder and softly broke the news.

Now…you may be thinking to yourself…”But Brad, diet soda has 0 calories. If I’m not adding calories to my body, isn’t that a good thing?”

If the 0 calories was in the form of natural water, I’d give it a boo-yah. But…diet soda is far from the pureness of H20. The chemicals (a.k.a. artificial sweeteners) added to diet soda and numerous other foods, can still negatively affect your health and fat loss efforts (not to mention the artificial sweetener side effects).

Here’s why…

Sugars Evil…But So Are The Artificial Sweetener Side Effects Associated With Sucralose, Aspartame, and other Zero Calorie Artificial Sweeteners

Don’t be like Claire and fall for the healthy hype surrounding zero calorie artificial sweeteners. It’s true…products sweetened with sugar and corn syrup contain more calories than artificially sweetened drinks/food. But replacing sugar with zero calorie artificial sweeteners is not the right approach for your fat loss efforts (or health efforts for that matter). I’ll share the right approach with you shortly!

Before I dig in any further, let me “out” the evil Mr. Zero Calorie Artificial Sweetener cousin since he is often disguised by many different names. Hopefully you’re not consuming many (if any) of these chemicals. They include:

Acesulfame Potassium or Acesulfame K

Aspartame

Saccharine

Sucralose

Food/drink markets have jumped on the low sugar health craze but unfortunately they’ve taken the easy and cheap way out. They do this by substituting sugar with these sweetened chemicals for added taste. But don’t just take my word for it. See for yourself.

Here are a few of the main “health food” offenders…go to your kitchen and look at the ingredients list of any of these low sugar, low carb, light, or diet foods/drinks:

Did you see any of the evil cousins listed in the ingredients?

What Do Artificial Sweeteners, Pesticides, and Bleach Have in Common?

You’ve probably seen Sucralose listed a few times in the ingredients of some of your packaged “health foods”.

Sucralose (aka splenda) is a sneaky and deceitful one. He claims he’s made from real sugar but his structure has been modified to include chlorine (yummy). If you don’t know what chlorine is, let me put it this way…it’s used to kill things…think pesticides and bleach.

Does this sounds like something you should be feeding your kids?

Are The Artificial Sweetener Side Effects Better For Me Than Sugar & Corn Syrup Flavored Foods?

It doesn’t have to be either or…I’ll explain shortly…but first…lets compare one evil next to the other…

do not contain calories…but they may increase your appetite and cause sugar cravings…

…so essentially if you fall to these cravings, you’re really not saving calories.

they may cause insulin spikes…which promotes fat storage.

may be linked to potential cancer risks as well as negative effects on your body’s organs (kidney/liver) and causing gastrointestinal problems.

may cause headaches

may cause development issues in children (and fetuses)

may be the cause of many more health issues.

Now you may notice I’ve used “may” many times. Even though there has yet to be conclusive evidence of the above issues with humans…they have been finding these issues during studies on animals.

Regardless, I still prefer to take the natural approach and avoid these chemicals.

To sum it up…to get lean and healthy…GO NATURAL…try to avoid both sugar and chemical artificial sweeteners.

The Healthy Alternative: Natural Sweeteners

Since life is all about balance…I’m not saying your can’t satisfy your sweet tooth. Just do this by making smart choices. Although all but one of the below ARE NOT 0 calorie substitutes, they are natural and contain antioxidants and nutrients. Therefore, they’re not considered empty calories. Here are a few natural sweetener sources:

Honey (raw)

Maple Syrup (organic)

Sorghum Syrup (if you’re not from the Southern US you may not have heard of this)

But what if you want to sweeten your food without adding calories (even if the calories contain antioxidants and nutrients)?

Stevia – The 0 Calorie NATURAL Sweetener

If you’re a member of TEAM LEAN, you’ve probably seen a few of my recipes include STEVIA. I first learned about this 0 calorie natural sweetener a few years ago. I use it whenever I’m looking to sweeten something up…without adding calories.

If you haven’t heard of stevia yet, you’re not alone. It’s a natural sweetener that comes from a South American herb (when dried). It’s been used for 1000s of years in certain parts of the world and I’ve yet to see any negative health concerns using this natural sweetener (it’s been all positive health reports to date).

But be careful…

…since it is up to 300 times more sweet than sugar. So if you’re substituting sugar for stevia, don’t just do a 1 for 1 ratio switch.

Switch to Stevia if you’re currently using an artificial sweetener

Unfortunately stevia is still not available in all grocery stores yet. If this is the case, check out my friends at Steviva. They sell a high quality “Stevia Blend” that contains another natural sweetener called erythritol.

Leave A Reply (13 comments so far)

Very informative post. Our mentor Rusty used to be a massive drinker of diet Coke I remember reading. Don’t know if he still is but hey. As I work as a lifeguard part time, I know a bit about chlorine and its shocking that this is used in artificial sweeteners.

Cool article Brad. I’m one of those guys who would suggest good old fashioned sugar above any of the artificial sweeteners. I have tried Stevia a few times and agree that it’s a great alternative. Still seems a bit sweet to me, but when up against chemicals such as chlorine it’s a no-brainer!

I’ve seen Stevia in a few places around here, but have yet to try it. I’ve heard great things about it from a few different sources, so the next time I need a sweetener, I’ll be sure to pick some up.

Here’s something to ponder: what about the recent revival of “throwback” drinks as of late (Wikipedia link for those who don’t know what they are: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Throwback_(drink) )? Which one would you say is actually healthier: the sodas made with sugar or with high fructose corn syrup?

Both versions are sporting about 40g of sugar, so obviously both should be avoided. My gut says the sugar version might be a bit “better” for your body.

I’m surprised you haven’t had stevia yet Robert! That’s very interesting regarding the “throwback” drinks. I never heard of them until now. But I agree, if people just can’t give up soda (which is just an excuse), I would definitely prefer them drink real sugar than the belly busting HFCS. Just don’t quote me on that as it would ruin my “rep”!

I have no idea whether there are any effects from drinking soda with artificial sweeteners. However, I do know that since I started drinking pure water I feel more energized and I don’t experience “soda cravings” that I did when I was drinking this sort of stuff.

So, I would really just advice to drink water and not really bother with anything else.

Great post! I’ve looked at artificial sweetners (I know I’m sorry!) a few times, just to cut out the real sugar. But as I looked at the ingredients I came to notice that there are more ‘bad’ stuff in artificial sweetners than there are in sugar! Like aspartame… that’s what they put in diet coke, so like it’s actually better to drink regular coke.

But then, Stevia is expensive, well it is in Holland. I bought a pack last week, with small sachets. And because I never tried Stevia before I put a whole sachet in my cup of tea. MY GOD I never imagined it would be that sweet! So now I use one sachet for about 4 to 5 days, just a very little ammount. And so much better than real sugar. I’m yet to try using it for my protein pancakes and muffins. Still working on getting that six pack… taking my time:)